ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I argue that in third-century Egypt, Christians did not keep their identity as Christian secret, but activated it according to the situation. In conversation with social scientists and drawing on papyrological evidence, I examine in this chapter three different situations where Christian identity comes into play. In his letter to Bishop Fabius of Antioch, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandrian mentions that Alexandrian Christians were dragged out of their houses by their neighbors during the Decian persecution. This means, I contend, that at a local level people were aware of who was a Christian among their neighbors. A letter of recommendation by an Oxyrhynchite presbyter called Leon and preserved in the papyrological record (P.Oxy. VIII 1162) makes clear that Christian identity needed to be specified when people traveled outside of their neighborhood and encountered strangers. Finally, a small papyrus archive of Oxyrhynchite flax merchant and Christian Aurelius Leonides presents a case in which multiple but separate identities are at work, including religious and mercantile, that do not overlap in the documentation (P.Oxy. II 209, P.Oxy. XLV 3262).
